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Nato official in £120m drug cash scandal

A SENIOR Nato official has been arrested and charged with trying to launder at least £120m for an international drugs cartel from his office at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.

Jan-Willem Matser, 50, a Dutch expert on eastern Europe whose job gave him access to classified Nato material, is expected to go on trial in the Hague this September over an alleged scheme in which money from drug dealing was to have been invested in various ventures in Romania.

Mohammed Kadem, 51, an alleged Moroccan drugs baron, and Pietro Fedino, 64, a wealthy Sicilian with a previous conviction for cocaine smuggling, are due to be tried with him.

The allegations against a senior Nato official are an embarrassment to Lord Robertson, the alliance’s British secretary-general. A senior Nato source confirmed last week that Matser, a former major in Dutch intelligence, had been detained and stressed that Nato had co-operated fully